Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Once Upon a Highland Christmas (Once Upon a Highland Season #3) by Lecia Cornwall - Blog Tour, Review & Giveaway

Once Upon
a Highland Christmas Once Upon a Highland Season # 3

By: Lecia Cornwall

Releasing December 9th, 2014

Avon Impulse

Lady
Alanna McNabb is bound by duty to her family, who insist she must marry a
gentleman of wealth and title. When she meets the man of her dreams, she knows
it's much too late, but her heart is no longer hers.

Laird Iain
MacGillivray is on his way to propose to another woman when he discovers Alanna
half-frozen in the snow and barely alive. She isn't his to love, yet she's
everything he's ever wanted.

As
Christmas comes closer, the snow thickens, and the magic grows stronger. Alanna
and Iain must choose between desire and duty, love and obligation.

But it's
Christmas in the Highlands, and there are bound to be a few surprises.

“Come on, Fiona—it’s the season for magic,”
Lady Elizabeth Curry said to her Scottish cousin, pressing a small bundle of
dried herbs into Fiona MacGillivray’s hand as they knelt by the fire in the
library of Craigleith Castle. Elizabeth held up her own herbs. “See? Like
this—wrap a lock of your hair around the bundle, say the words, and toss it
into the heart of the fire!”

Fiona stared at the crumbling gray
leaves in her palm and wrinkled her nose at the pungent scent. “Are you sure
this will work? I’m not English. Besides, magic can work in ways you don’t
expect. Auld Annie says—”

“Auld Annie!” Elizabeth scoffed.
“What could she know of true love? She must be a hundred years old if she’s a
day.”

Fiona glanced at the door, but it
remained shut. “Annie has the sight,” she whispered. “And she knows more magic
than anyone. Why, I once saw her heal a ewe with just—”

Elizabeth sniffed. “This is about
true love, not sheep. Come on. What can it hurt to know?” She drew a pair of
sewing scissors out of her pocket and raised her eyebrows.

Fiona regarded her cousin’s eager
face, golden in the firelight. The rest of the room was filled with the
thickening shadows of a winter afternoon. Night fell early in December, and
Annie had predicted winter would come sooner than usual this year. “Shouldn’t
we be outside in the woods, dancing around a bonfire or something?” Fiona
asked, holding very still as Elizabeth carefully snipped one of her curls.

“It’s freezing outside!” Elizabeth
protested. “Why can’t it be in an earl’s library?”

“Did the spell say so? Annie says
a spell must be done properly, or it can go wrong,” Fiona said. Elizabeth’s
brow crumpled for a moment, then cleared.

“What could possibly go wrong?
It’s not as if it’s black magic. The spell says you must gather the herbs of
midsummer, dry them, tie them with a lock of your hair, and burn them on the
feast day of St. Nicholas. That’s today. As long as the words come from your
heart, then your wish is sure to come true.”

Wonderful historical romance filled with love and even some magic. Iain and Alanna are perfect for each other and the secondary characters are all great - except for Penelope, but that's just because she is so easy to hate. I haven't read the first two books in the series, but Ms. Cornwall has got me hooked now, and I'm sure I love them just as much!eARC provided via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Lecia
Cornwall lives and writes in Calgary, Canada, amid the beautiful foothills of
the Canadian Rockies, with four cats, two teenagers, a crazy chocolate Lab, and
one very patient husband. She is hard at work on her next book.